User:PearlyGigs

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This user lives in England.

en-GB-NThis user is a native speaker of British English.

LabThis user supports the Labour Party.

This user is a member of
the Guild of Copy Editors.

This user has participated in 1 Backlog Elimination Blitz and 2 Backlog Elimination Drives with the Guild of Copy Editors.

This user is a participant in
WikiProject Football.

This user supports Leeds United.

This user pledges to return to
Old-fashioned Wikipedian values.

Activities

In progress

• James Westmoreland — new; expanding
• Norman Hunter — DYK nomination
• Category:Years in Great Britain — island v kingdom

Articles created

• RMS Salsette — has been reviewed; start-class
• James Westmoreland — has been reviewed; stub-class

Articles promoted

• 2013–14 FC Basel season — formerly in GOCE list; promoted to C-class
• Brad Inman — formerly in GOCE list; promoted to C-class
• Djurgårdens IF Fotboll — GOCE blitz; promoted to C-class
• Jonny Bairstow — was in GOCE list but needed structural revamp and complete rewrite; promoted to B-class
• Norman Hunter — revised, expanded, and promoted via B-class to WP:GA

Articles reviewed

• Talk:Peter Talbot (bishop)/GA1 — GA review; passed after a few copyedit tweaks
• Talk:Battle of Meligalas/GA1 — GA review; passed easily — excellent article
• Talk:Lancashire wrestling/GA1‎ — GA review; passed after minor copyediting; fascinating subject
• Talk:Rosemary Miller/GA1 — GA review; on hold for structure query but then passed
• Talk:Taj Mahal/GA1 — GAN backlog drive; GAFAIL due to spot-check issues
• Talk:Leon Leuty/GA1 — GAN backlog drive; passed
• Talk:Suleiman of Germiyan/GA1 — GAN backlog drive; passed

Other articles I've worked on

• Alex Greenwood — already B-class but needed copyediting
• Captain (2022 film) — GOCE drive
• R. Madhesh — GOCE drive
• Sultan Bathery — GOCE drive
• Administration of Visakhapatnam — GOCE drive
• Battle of Toro — GOCE drive
• Zaidee Jackson — GOCE drive
• Kumar Sangakkara — GOCE drive
• Fighting Man of the Plains — corrected and expanded plot

• Charlotte Bellamy — copyedit and cleanup
• Castellar de Santiago — GOCE; serious OR and COPYVIO issues discovered
• Trisha Ashley — GOCE; minor tweaks only
• Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury — GOCE blitz; major WP:V issue
• Valentino Rossi — GOCE blitz; major issues about length, repetition, and excess detail
• Monarchy of the Netherlands — GOCE blitz; a few tweaks in the lead but otherwise this was well-written
• Rajesh Hamal — GOCE blitz
• Qasim Amin — GOCE blitz
• History of monarchy in the United Kingdom‎ — suggested split/merge

Sources

Reliable

• https://www.11v11.com/
• https://www.leedsunited.com/
• https://nationalfootballmuseum.com/
• https://www.national-football-teams.com/
• https://www.rsssf.org/
• https://www.soccerbase.com/
• https://www.thefa.com/

Okay but not secure

• http://barryhugmansfootballers.com/
• http://www.englandfootballonline.com
• http://www.mightyleeds.co.uk

To be avoided — and replace where found

• https://www.fa-cupfinals.co.uk/
• https://www.englandstats.com/index.php

Useful pages

• CFD
• Requested moves
• Copyediting scripts

Thoughts about WP

I have used WP for reference since it began. I remember I first stumbled across it in an early Google search, probably back in 2001 or whenever. From time to to time, I took advantage of its open door policy to correct typos and the like. Never anything substantial – maybe a sentence or two at most. As I say, I was more interested in finding things rather than adding them. I never considered membership until last year (2023) when I saw WP:GOCE and thought I wouldn't mind helping with that.

My username, by the way, is based on a CAPTCHA!

I have been a very intermittent member, it has to be said, because of things called real life and work, and that is likely to remain the case. Only today (10 July 2024), I was supposed to be setting off on a long journey to work "away from home" for several weeks. Then, last night, after I had already finished packing, I get a call telling me there is a crisis and my secondment is postponed. Sorry and all that!

Yeah, great!

Anyway, as things stand, I'm provisionally scheduled to pick up the secondment on 22 July (not any longer, I'm not!) but, frankly, it's a fiasco so I've given it up and requested a permanent role at base where I'm close to home. It looks as if that will be agreed and, if it is, I'll have more WP time. Watch this space.

No need to keep watching because it's sorted, and I even got a 5% pay rise!! I think they want to keep me and so they've agreed to stop pissing me about. I wish the same could happen nationwide for all working people. Anyway, I will have more WP time now. PearlyGigs (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

So, what do I think of WP after several months and a thousand edits? I'd say it's a mixture of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It is highly positive in some areas and completely negative in others. In between there are areas which are, as another editor said to me recently, arcane. I won't go into too much detail at this stage but I have my opinions and maybe one day, with more experience, I'll try to help reduce the negatives and clarify the arcanes.

I am clear about where I can help in the meantime, though. GOCE is always going to be worthwhile and, after my experiences as a reader, I consider good categorisation to be essential because readers need to navigate. Then, obviously enough, the site being an encyclopaedia, we need to develop our articles. GOCE has given me several that I've been able to improve (hopefully!) and there are others that I've selected out of personal interest. I'm very pleased to have lifted Norman Hunter to B-class and beyond, although I now think B-class is quite sufficient for any article that isn't going into FAC.

Yes, I've decided the GA process is one of the arcane ones and I'll be giving it a miss from now on. After all, who needs it? If an article is developed to meet the Class=B criteria, it's a good article.

Equally, I have no interest in the AFD process because it is just a pointless shouting match. In my humble opinion, requests for article deletion should be decided by a designated sysop, not by a minimal "consensus". The sysops know the site policies and can judge notability, so any one of them should be trusted with keep, redirect, merge, or delete. I don't advocate the same for CFD because notability doesn't come into that and a consensus of interested parties is the best approach to navigation.

And that'll do me for today, I think. PearlyGigs (talk) 20:57, 10 July 2024 (UTC)